


The Story Can Resume

by whitchry9



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Reichenbach, Supernatural - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock writes, things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Story Can Resume

Sherlock can't write.

It's not a physical incapability, since he's quite good at the act of forming letters, crafting sentences, stacking paragraphs upon each other.

But that's not writing.

 

His blog isn't writing either, not with its technical nature and lack of words that really mean anything.

 _Really_ mean anything.

 

Because when Sherlock uses those sorts of words, the wrong sorts of things happen.

 _They_ happen.

 

* * *

 

 

The first time Sherlock wrote a story he was five.

It was about pirates.

He wasn't very good at writing then, so the man didn't turn out very well, parts of him undefined, because Sherlock had forgotten to mention things like his hair colour or skin tone.

His outfit was real though, and so was his sword.

Sherlock screamed when he appeared, which caused the pirate to start, and jump out the window, so by the time Mummy arrived, there was no one in the room except Sherlock.

They thought he had a very vivid imagination.

Sherlock knew well enough by then that they wouldn't believe him. Grown ups never did.

 

When he had to write a short story for school, he knew well enough by then to write something safe.

He'd had enough of pirates and adventurers appearing from no where other than his words. (Sherlock often wondered what happened to them after they left, as they inevitably did. Did they fade away? Disappear to wherever they came from? Continue on living despite having no past to refer to?)

Instead he wrote about a boy who got a dog.

His teacher criticized his imagination, but last time Sherlock wrote, people had actually died.

He wasn't going to risk it again.

 

* * *

 

 

Despite the streams of stories swirling around in his head, Sherlock didn't write any of them down. Couldn't. Who knows what would have happened if he'd let loose some of the things his mind had come up with.

The end of the world, probably.

 

There were so many tales in his head that sometimes, they just had to come out.

They would scream at him, louder than anything outside his own mind, and he would break down and put pen to paper, fingers to keys, pouring life into whatever it was he had to get out. Like writing in his own blood, birthing something new from it, not knowing what it would turn out to be. He hated the uncertainty.

He usually went for the least damaging ones, but sometimes, they just wouldn't do.

He'd caused awful things that way. It was the only way for the screaming to stop.

 

Or at least it was until he discovered the drugs.

Because right after he injected the drugs into his vein, they carried the stories away.

Sherlock didn't know where, didn't really care, because wherever they went, they weren't hurting anyone.

(Sherlock couldn't explain that to Mycroft.

“I'm not hurting anyone,” he told him.

“You're getting hurt Sherlock,” he'd said.

 _Better me than them,_ he thought, but there was no point in verbalizing that. Mycroft had already had him committed once.)

 

* * *

 

 

Then there is John.

For him, writing is therapeutic. John can write whatever he damn well pleases on his blog, and nothing happens.

Sherlock has long since found that writing non-fiction has no effect, since he's simply recording things that have already happened. The universe seems to have no reason for bringing them into being again.

But John can craft worlds. He can do whatever he wants with his words.

Sherlock envies him for that.

So maybe he's too harsh on John, belittles his blog.

But it's only because John has the power to use his words however he wishes, and chooses to waste them like that.

 

Perhaps Sherlock also has power. But it's never seemed like that to him.

If it was, it was a horrible power.

 

(He speaks about it with John, once. Theoretically, of course.

“What if you could craft things with your words?” he asked John one day, when he was typing a blog post.

John looked at him strangely.

Sherlock continued. “I mean, what if the things you wrote came to life. If you could write about something happening, and it would.”

John turned from his computer screen to face Sherlock.

“What prompted this?”

Sherlock shrugged.

John thought about it. “I think it would be pretty interesting. I mean, just imagine what you could do with that. You could literally write yourself out of a tight situation. You could write yourself rich, or make friends, or exact revenge on criminals.” He gazed off into the distance. Sherlock considered what he said.

“You're very optimistic,” he said finally. “Did you ever think about the negatives?”

John looked at him again. “No,” he admitted. “I suppose not. But it's like any sort of superpower or ability; there's always a downside to something amazing.”

He resumed pecking away, and Sherlock pondered that for a while.)

 

* * *

 

 

He tried it once.

There was a man in prison who Sherlock had caught. He'd murdered his wife and their two young daughters, but the evidence couldn't hold up.

There was one slightly less gloomy spot in that thundercloud though, and the man had raped his wife before murdering her. He was sentenced for that.

Sherlock had never forgiven himself for not being able to convict the man of murder.

So he crafted his words carefully, described the man, the crime, and concocted a tale in which the man died in prison, tragically, just before he was about to be released.

 

Lestrade called him the next day with the news, knowing how much the case had upset Sherlock.

He tried not to sound overly pleased on the phone, and it wasn't that difficult. Despite what the man had done, Sherlock was still horrified with himself for what he had done.

He didn't try again.

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock knows the power that words have.

Moriarty seemed to be able to wield them well, crafting a new persona through tales, using a reporter who couldn't have known better, but Sherlock couldn't seem to forgive.

 

In almost every way, Sherlock and Moriarty were the same. And opposite.

Moriarty spun tales with his tongue, whereas Sherlock was limited to the written word.

 

Sherlock had intended to 'write himself out of a tight situation', much like John had once suggested, but then Moriarty told him to kill himself, and there was no way out.

Even with the man dead, his words still held power over Sherlock.

 

So Sherlock called John, apologized, cried (just a tiny bit), but couldn't erase what Moriarty had created with his words.

Not even with his own.

 

So he jumps, a plan in his back pocket, just in case, and vows to repair this, not by erasing Moriarty’s words, but by constructing a new story around them.

Much like John once suggested.

 

* * *

 

 

So after Sherlock fakes his suicide, he sits down to write.

He crafts a tale about a man that he can picture quite clearly in his mind. Sherlock names him, and places him in a flat with a lovely landlady. He builds the man's world, and writes about how even though he's suffered a loss, the man still feels inexplicably hopeful.

And Sherlock hopes it's enough until he can return.

And the story can resume.


End file.
